50 Shades of Kiko
by pinama02
Summary: Francisco and Lauren have been best friends for 3 years now, but with the arrival of unforeseen circumstances, the nature of their friendship will be drawn into question and their relationship will change forever. This is their love story.
1. Elections and Complex Emotions

_Chapter 1- Elections & Complex Emotions_

This could not be happening. There was just no way, no possible way it could really be true. Surely this was a joke? It had, after all, begun as a kind of joke, but she had never dreamed it could ever go this far as to become a reality. But such is the nature of all things ultimately; everything is impossible until its done. Then it becomes inevitable. And as the night dragged on, and more and more of the state's returns came in, the election of Donald Trump seemed to continue to gain more and more of an air of inevitability.

Lauren began to feel the sting of salty wetness building up just behind her eyes as her vision went blurry, and she succumbed to the tears. The room was getting smaller and smaller as she felt the walls close in on her. It was becoming more and more difficult to breath. Dios Mio! How could this have happened? What did it mean? What was going to happen to her? _I'm going to be deported_ , she thought to herself miserably. _All of these friends that I'v made, my education, my future… It will all have been for nothing. I'll have to work the fields, and with Trump's new wall, there won't be any way for me to escape back into the country to see my friends again. I'll lose everything. How could these white people do this to me? Maybe Pina was right; maybe Communist revolution was the answer. She was afraid (mainly of losing her private property) but not as afraid as she was of Trump._

"Nothing is certain at this point in the night, but it does appear as if Trump will become our next President ladies and gentlemen", she heard Anderson Cooper announce over the T.V. in the MCC. The tears were flowing freely down her face now and there was nothing she could do to stop them anymore. She sat, alone, on the couch of the MCC silently crying to herself in a room full of people that she could no longer see nor hear. She was lost in her own miserable thoughts; there was nothing else.

This was the scene Francisco saw, as he came back to the couch where him and his very best friend were sitting, after getting seconds from the complimentary Pizza Hut that was being provided for the night. _This Pizza is shit_ , he thought to himself. _I wish they had gotten Dominos instead_. But the quality of pizza was the least of his concerns that night. Trump was going to be president now, and he feared he may be deported and sent back to the labor camps of El Salvador, where he would be worked to the edge of death under the hot Central American sun. _At least I still have two more months to enjoy with Lauren while Obama is president_. Thats when he saw her crying.

"Lauren! Whats wrong?" The sight of her tears made his stomach churn. He couldn't stand the thought of her unhappy- _She's my best friend. Of course I would be worried about her. I would feel bad if any of my friends were upset. There's nothing weird about this feeling… right?_ But somewhere in the back of his subconscious he knew this was something entirely different. No. He couldn't exactly say that he would feel _this_ bad if he saw some of his other friends crying. This feeling was something else. Something… _more_.

"Its Trump!" she choked out. "He's going to be president and I'm going to be deported and I'll never get to see you again!" Something about the sight of Kiko, that she couldn't quite process in the forefront of her mind, made her lose all control. Her silent tears devolved into a full on fit. She was sobbing uncontrollably now. This was her very best friend in the whole world and the thought of never seeing him again made her heart clinch tightly in her chest.

Francisco placed his plate carefully on the ground and put his arms gently but tightly around her, pulling her into a fierce hug. "Don't worry Lauren. Maybe it won't be so bad? Its entirely possible that Trump has merely bamboozled the white electorate into voting for him and doesn't really intend to do any of this stuff, you know?" He told her softly, as he continued to soothingly caress her back. "Why couldn't the Democrats just nominate a halfway decent candidate! Why did they cheat Bernie?! His poll numbers were far better against Trump than Hillary's were. Curse the liberal elite's moderation and placation of the ruling bourgeoisie!" She cried back at him.

"I know what you mean." He lamented. "Perhaps Marx was right in saying that "The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them". Maybe we should think about joining Pina's communist guerrilla army to oppose American capitalism and neo-fascism."

"I was thinking the same thing actually" she responded, the tears becoming less and less frequent now, and her breathing more and more steady. Something about being in his arms just made her feel as if everything would be ok in the world. "Besides", he said "If you get deported, so will I, and Trump's wall is only suppose to keep people out of America right?" "Right…" she responded uneasily. "Well, that means theres nothing to stop us from going to the same place outside of America" he proclaimed warmly.

"Thats true!" she beamed joyfully back at him. He wiped the last few tears gently from her face with the back of his hand and smiled back at her. "We could go anywhere!" The possibilities were racing through her mind now. The rest of the room faded away for her, the impending Trump presidency forgotten in her mind, and all that was left was her and Kiko, together on that couch, with a world of possibilities and bright futures ahead of them.

"We could go to Australia!" Francisco suggested. "It seems like a pretty awesome place. Pina tells me Australian accents are pretty hot and theres this girl with massive tits who lives over there…" Lauren frowned. She didn't like the sound of Kiko talking about some other girl's tits like that. _Wait.. What am I thinking? So what if he looks at other girl's tits? We're just friends… right? Then why does it make me so sad to imagine him with someone else?_

"…Whats wrong?" He asked, noticing the change in her demeanor. "Oh… no… nothing. Nothing i'm fine." She lied, putting a smile back on and trying to shove these confusing feelings back into her subconscious. _Kiko is just a friend… a really really close friend. Thats all._

"Well theres not just Australia, if you don't like that idea. New Zealand is right next to it and I'v heard its a beautiful place. They filmed Lord of the Rings there!" He said excitedly. By now, however, it was too late for her to push these emotions away. She couldn't help but picture herself and Francisco living together in a cute little Hobbit hole in the ground of some distant, gorgeous meadow somewhere in New Zealand, Of waking up to the morning sun and the smell of a home cooked breakfast waiting for her in her little Hobbit hole, and waiting in the kitchen was…

"I'v seen pictures of the beaches there. They look like so much fun. I haven't been to a beach in forever…" Francisco carried on, completely unaware of Lauren's ongoing inner struggle. His arm around her shoulder was now becoming increasingly difficult to ignore and she felt herself sweating, and the more she thought about sweating the worse it got. Now she was imagining themselves alone on a picturesque beach in some far off land. The sun shining, the waves rolling, the smell of salt in the air, the feel of Kiko's hands rubbing sun tan lotion onto her back, moving lower and lower…

"Oh god!" she yelped uncontrollably. "What? What's wrong?!" he asked worriedly. "I… I… I need to go." This was too much for her to handle. She disentangled herself from his arm and leapt up out of her seat. "Wait!" he protested. "Whats going on? Is something wrong?" He couldn't imagine what had just occurred. "Yes.. I mean No! I don't know… I need some air. I'll see you tomorrow" She leaned forward for a moment on impulse, as if to give him their usual goodbye hug but suddenly relented and awkwardly waved before rushing out of the MCC leaving her jacket behind.

"What the hell just happened?" He asked himself, glued to his seat, clutching her jacket in his hands.

"What the hell just happened?" She asked herself, as she stumbled down the street in the blistering cold of Sewanee, towards home.


	2. Memes and Close Calls

_Chapter 2 Memes and Close Calls_

The sun trickled in through the shades of Smith 240 and onto her face to disturb a very peaceful sleep. _Ahh wow. I haven't slept that well in weeks_ , Lauren thought to herself as she stretched herself out of bed and got dressed for the day. _Pants-check, Socks, shoes-check, shirts-check… where did I put my good jacket? Last I remember wearing it was… oh god… last night. Why was I reacting like that? Kiko must think I'm some sort of maniac running out of there like that._ "I should really apologize to him" she said to herself walking out the door and up South Carolina Avenue. _I was really being ridiculous. It was just all of the stress from Trump's election that did it. I mean, thinking about Kiko like that…_ "Ha Ha Ha" she could help but laugh out loud to herself, if for no other reason than for her own reassurement. _I should apologize and everything can just go back to normal._

 _"_ Lauren! Over here!" She turned to look in the direction of the voice and saw, of course, the very subject of her thoughts sitting at their usual table in McClurg with their usual friends. Francisco motioned towards the chair just beside him and she sat down. "…I would take Cara Delevingne's eyebrows _alone_ over all of Beyonce put together" she heard Pina arguing with the rest of the table. "She does have excellent eyebrows" Kiko responded, and, to her dismay Lauren found herself subconsciously thinking back to her own eyebrows in her reflection earlier this morning. _I don't care. I don't care. We're not dating. We're just friends. He can talk about whatever other girls he wants. It doesn't matter to me._ And as she continued to repeat the mantra to herself in her head in the hope that eventually it would truly sink in, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey Lauren, don't let me forget to give you your jacket back. You left it at the MCC last night. I have it in my room." Francisco was telling her. _Last night_ … She wished he would move his hand off of her shoulder, or perhaps she really just wished it hadn't made her feel so flushed. "Uh… ya. Sure. I'll get it right after this." she nodded back at him. Finally he moved back to his own food and rejoined the conversation. There was apparently some 'meme war' going on across the table between Pina, Keenan, and Thomas; the top memers on campus, excluding Keenan.

"Damn dawg why you gotta do them like that?" she heard Keenan say to Pina across the table and for the first time realized that everyone at the table was looking in her direction. "Keenan how about you work on making a personality for yourself that isn't dependent on pissing me off?" Pina retorted. "Dawg I'm outside" Keenan said, which gained a wealth of laughter from the table. "If I call you a punk ass Bitch you gotta swing first" Pina was saying, but she wasn't paying attention anymore. _Oh god. What did they post?_ She thought to herself as she quickly went to open her snapchat.

Sure enough, there it was. pina_69 had a new story up, just posted. She opened it and gasped aloud. There was Kiko, with his hand on her shoulder beaming at her, and she was smiling back. The sun even seemed to hit there faces just right, as if to signal some type of divine prophecy, with the caption "wen Bae say she finally off her period & u don't have to just have anal anymore. #goalsAF". She was mortified. She could feel her face flush and heat up and knew that she must have been red as a fresh tomato.

"Oh my god! Guys!" she protested to no avail. She new that damage had already been done. pina_69's snap account was perhaps the most popular social media account on campus along with the "Souperstar"'s, but with far superior quality. Dozens of people had more than likely already viewed it. _Oh god. We really do look pretty cute.- No! God I have got to stop thinking about this._ She hurriedly finished the rest of her food to get out of there, when she remembered that she had already told Francisco that she would go with him to retrieve her lost jacket. _Shit_.

"You ready to go?" He asked her, and she could only nod in response; she simply didn't trust her own voice at this point. They walked in a not altogether uncomfortable silence towards Hunter where he lived. For some godforsaken reason something her middle school dean, Dean Davies, had said to her came to the forefront of her mind. "You shouldn't ever look for a romantic partner. Look for a friend; someone who you can be completely comfortable with, to laugh with, and just _be_ with, someone that makes you feel _at home_. Then, after you've found that, move forward as you may. Those are the relationships that last."

 _Oh sweet mother Mary help me._ That speech Dean Davies had given to her 7th grade life management class had always stuck with her for some reason and always rang true, but she simply did not want to admit to herself that it was applicable in this situation. _If something goes wrong and we can't be friends anymore… I could never live with myself. He probably doesn't even feel the same way… Not that I even feel that way!…. shit…_

Before she knew it they were walking into Kiko's room. "Here you are" he said handing her the jacket. She reached out to grab it and inadvertently brushed hands with him. She quickly pulled away, perhaps a little too quickly. She hoped he haft noticed, and also tried to stop herself from blushing at the same time.

"So, if you don't mind me asking, what was the deal with you last night? I mean I understand you were upset about Trump and the Democratic establishments collusion with the Bourgeoisie, but it seemed like there was something… else?" He asked her. "Ya I'm really sorry about that. I didn't mean to be rude. I was just… dealing with some strange… emotions, I guess, but I think I'm ok now." She lied. "I hope you not mad." she said shyly, shuffling her feet and looking down at the floor. "Mad? I could never be mad at you!" He laughed, wrapping her into a tight hug.

Her stomach fluttered, as if a million butterflies had just been born and set out into the world for the very first time within the confines of her body. She felt as if the whole weight of the past few days had been lifted from her shoulders and was truly content. Simply, she couldn't have felt more _at home_. _Why can't everything just be this simple. I could stay like this forever_.

He disentangled himself slightly from the hug and held her to him slightly closer than arms length. "Well, I'm glad that your alright." He smiled at her. "It makes me upset when your unhappy. If theres anything I can do just let me know and its done." This was far too much to properly process at the moment. She felt a pulsing warmth in her loins and a tingling in her extremities that was increasingly difficult to ignore. She found herself becoming overwhelmed by a surging desire and before she realized just _what_ it was she was desiring she was already leaning forward towards him faster than she could have imagined.

She was looking almost solely at Kiko's lips now. There was nothing else in the world at that moment. Moving closer and closer… She licked her lips… closer and closer… so close. She could feel his breath on her lips. _Holy Shit!_

"Um… thanks for my jacket!… I have to um go do my reading for Marxism 308… I'll see you around" she straightened herself away from him awkwardly and turned to leave. _That was too close. What the fuck am I thinking?_

 _Was she about to…. No. No don't be silly Kiko. She doesn't like you like that. We're best friends and I'm fine with that….I think?_ He thought to himself as the door shut behind her. "I think maybe I need to let off some steam. Capri Cavanni . com it is!"


End file.
